Fires in high-rise, multiple dwelling structures, such as apartment buildings, hotels, motels and office buildings, are a serious source of concern to people who either live in or temporarily reside in such premises. Fires with the resultant intense smoke and fume generation are particularly devasting in high-rise structures in which a large number of people may be entrapped. Furthermore, by their very nature, high-rise structures present physical impediments to rapid rescue attempts, particularly with regard to persons who may be entrapped on the upper levels of such structures. Accordingly, the time elapsing between the initial outbreak of a fire and the arrival of the rescue team at a room on an upper floor may be relatively great.
Most fire-related deaths are not caused by the fire directly, but result from the toxic fumes and smoke generated by the fire. A common procedure for entrapped persons, whose escape has been blocked or the route is unknown, is to await rescue by isolating themselves as much as possible from the fumes and smoke of the fire. This isolation is generally attempted by huddling within a small room (e.g., the bathroom) with the door closed, and for example, by placing wet materials against the bottom of the door and the floor to prevent fumes and smoke from entering. The difficulty resulting from this procedure is that there is only a limited amount of breathable air within the isolated room, and there may be no means for providing fresh air. (For example, there may be no windows in the bathroom or the smoke rising around the building from lower floors may dictate that the bathroom window must remain closed). In spite of the barricading efforts by those who are trapped, smoke and fumes quickly begin seeping into the place of refuge, and thus asphyxiation or smoke poisoning may soon result unless rescuers arrive almost immediately.
Existing fire protection systems do not attempt to solve the above problem. For example, the object of sprinkler systems is to put out the fire, but such systems do not provide fresh air to entrapped persons.
It has also been proposed (Letter to the Editor, New York Times, Feb. 14, 1981, Charles F. Sepsy) to "modify a building's heating and cooling system so that air can be pumped into the area adjacent to the fire" so that "an invisible curtain can be placed around the flames, and smoke as well as gases can be exhausted to the outdoors". Apart from the fact that this proposed system would appear to require a very complicated system of baffles and zones to prevent inadvertent force feeding of oxygen to the fire, its purpose is to isolate the fire to allow entrapped occupants time to escape. This proposed system does not provide fresh air to those unable to escape before rescuers arrive. Furthermore, the large ducts which are characteristic of existing heating and cooling systems tend to serve as channels for conducting hot smoke and fumes into the rooms on the upper floors. Thus, occupants trapped in a bathroom on an upper floor would likely be forced to block the mouth of any air conditioning or heating duct which opened into the bathroom for preventing overheated air, smoke and fumes from flooding into their place of refuge.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a reliable and relatively simple system advantageously utilizing existing small-diameter hot and cold water feed pipes in a building to provide fresh air to occupants entrapped within predetermined rooms of refuge in the building to sustain life and to aid in excluding smoke and fumes from the isolated room until rescuers arrive.